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The United States is the country of choice for many fortune seekers from other nations. People come from all corners of the world just to grab their share of the American dream, no matter the cost. While the adventure has been rewarding for many years, the more significant percentage of US immigrants face many challenges in their quest for a better life.
For Maria Mendoza, whose parents came to the US from Mexico, the immigrant communities in the US deserve protection, and they should be well-informed about their constitutional rights within the US. That is why she has set up a legal practice to advocate the course of immigrants.
The Mendoza Law Firm is a legal firm 100% dedicated to immigration law, providing clients with the key benefits and resources they need to achieve their dreams. Some of the services provided by The Mendoza Law Firm include family-based immigration, employment-based immigration, political asylum, various visas, immigration appeals, DACA, and more.
According to Mendoza, the focus of her practice, for now, is primarily to address the plight of immigrants already living in the United States. Without the kind of representation and counseling support that Mendoza is providing, many immigrants who are merely out to earn a decent living and just looking out for themselves may find themselves on the wrong side of the US immigration laws.
Through her service and expertise, Mendoza offers an educational guide to people to help them understand their rights within the law’s scope. The impact of her work is gaining dividends, as she attests to the fact that many of her clients have learned enough from her and are now able to fix some types of cases for themselves, which would otherwise have been impossible for them to do.
“I believe in a client-centric approach,” she says. “Every case is different, but persons can often fix their papers – even when they entered illegally or have more than one entry illegally – in as little as three years and with a work permit and social security card while their case is pending.”
Amongst other reasons, Mendoza’s concern and interest in taking up the cases of immigrants in the US stem from her own experience as the child of immigrant parents who relocated to the United States from Mexico.
One of the most significant challenges immigrants face is getting their paperwork sorted. And without their papers being in proper order, getting decent jobs or accommodation, or just living conveniently without the threat of harassment from a government official was always tough. So Maria Mendoza wanted a change and dreamt that she would see to that change one day.
“I grew up wanting to help my community, and helping my community obtain their papers is my biggest passion,” she says.
Her mother was born and raised in Mexico but relocated to the United States under the Bracero program. In those days, she and her family got involved in hard labor, working on farms in the scorching heat of the day just to scrap an honest living.
For the young Maria at the time, those early experiences when her mother and relatives worked the farms picking onions opened her eyes to the harsh conditions immigrants faced.
“As a child of an immigrant growing up in the outskirts of El Paso, Texas,” Mendoza recalls, “I witnessed a lot of injustices towards Mexican and Latino immigrants and the Latino community in general.”
Today, she runs a successful full-service immigration law firm helping people with various immigration services. Based on what she’s learned in her practice, Mendoza believes that the immigrant community can be a step ahead if they are informed and knowledgeable about legal options, such as humanitarian visas.
Through detailed screening of cases about immigrants, Mendoza revealed that her firm “has helped many people who have suffered various forms of abuse in the United States to fix their papers” so they don’t get sent back.
Another concern for Maria Mendoza’s law firm is the plight of underage immigrant children who come under the DACA protection right (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). According to official Center for American Progress records, at least 1.8 million people are eligible for DACA as of March 2020. Still, only just over 800,000 of those people ever got enrolled in the program.
These are some front-burner issues that Mendoza hopes she can address via her firm. Although she affirms that the idea behind setting up the DACA program is laudable, she points out that the result achieved under the program in recent years has fallen below expectations.
“We help immigrants renew their DACA status and pray for immigration reform to provide a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients, she says, while offering candid advice to immigrants hoping to live the American Dream.
According to her, the American Dream is still alive. But to access it, Mendoza says that immigrants must give themselves to “working hard, dreaming big and not giving up.”
Furthermore, she encourages people to look inward and keep an open mind in their quest for success. For her, there are several honest ways people can become successful living as immigrants in the US. Besides having formal education or specific skills, she says there are other ways to be successful.
“There is not only one pathway to achieving the American dream,” she concludes.
So if you’re an immigrant in the US and have issues to sort out with your paperwork, you need professional handling, or if you’ve suffered any kind of abuse as an immigrant, Maria Mendoza law firm can fight for you and make sure you get the justice you deserve. The Mendoza Law Firm provides educational resources through its YouTube channel and Facebook Live videos, which provide testimonials, educational resources, and a sense of community for tackling the challenges of achieving immigration goals.
